


Slow

by AliceLiddle



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Divergence, Carry On Sparks - Slow, First Kiss, M/M, Spells Gone Wrong, carry on sparks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24366382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceLiddle/pseuds/AliceLiddle
Summary: For the Carry On Sparks prompt "Slow" - Simon accidentally slows down time when he finds himself feeling overwhelmed before Christmas in eighth year. Luckily, Baz is there to help sort things out.“I just wanted everything to stop for a second so that I could think.”Baz huffs a little laugh. “I guess we should all be glad you don’t think more often then, if this is what happens.”When I don’t respond he drops his teasing tone and tips his head a bit, trying to get me to meet his eyes. “What do you need to think about so badly that time has to stop, Snow?”
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 11
Kudos: 228





	Slow

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> This is the first fic that I've published in the Carry On fandom, and I'm so excited!
> 
> I have a lot of other fics in various stages of writing and editing, but since this one was written for the Carry On Sparks prompt of "Slow", I challenged myself to get this written and published before the next prompt was announced. Because of that, this has not been beta'd, so feel free to let me know if you notice any glaring errors.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [WaywardFangirl](https://waywardfangirl.tumblr.com/), and if you want to try some of the prompts from Carry On Sparks, you can find those [here](https://carryonsparks.tumblr.com/)!

**Simon**

It’s too much. It’s all just too much and I feel like I’m going to boil over if I don’t have a second to figure things out. Ever since I was Visited by Baz’s mum, I’ve felt like I’ve been losing control of things, even more than normal. Like there’s an inside joke that everyone gets except for me, or like how I sometimes feel when I’m trying to grab something in a dream, but I don’t know what it is, and it keeps slipping through my fingers. I feel like I’m missing something and like I’m on the verge of complete panic. I’m nervous and jumpy at the weirdest times, and I feel like I can’t quite catch my breath even when I’m relaxing in my room.

With those feelings smashing around in my chest, it almost feels like some cruel trick when I walk into class after lunch and hear Miss Possibelf announce that we’re going to be working on slowing spells today. I feel like I need time to slow down, or just for time to pause entirely, and yet instead of teaching us how to do _that_ , something that I’m in desperate need of, we’re going to be learning how to slow down things that are flying at us. I mean, I suppose that’s an important enough skill to have, but if something’s flying at me in a fight, I’ll just duck or use my sword. Either way, I really don’t want to slow down the tennis balls that are being lobbed at my head. Even worse, it’s Baz who’s throwing them at me, because Miss Possibelf assigned partners for us today. He’s been a bit nicer since our truce, but I still don’t want him throwing things at my face or watching as I attempt to cast anything.

“If you hit me, that counts as antagonistic behavior.” Baz had promised not to antagonize me, and I really hope that part of our truce holds up today, because I feel like the littlest push could make me crack apart.

He just smirks and raises one of his perfect eyebrows. “I hope your spell work is up to par then.”

I bite down the words trying to rise in my throat – they won’t come out right anyway, they never do around him – and stomp over to grab a tennis ball. I lob it at him as I walk back to his desk, not giving him any warning, but he still casts the spell flawlessly, and snags the ball out of the air from where it’s barely inching along its trajectory.

“I could count that as antagonistic behavior too, you know. Most people don’t throw things at their acquaintances like that.”

For some reason, Baz’s words make the weird feeling in my chest get even worse. He didn’t even sound upset when he said it, it was more like he was joking around with a friend, but he was also quick to point out that we aren’t friends. We’re acquaintances, even if that seems like a really strange word to use when describing the person who you’ve lived with for the past seven and a half years, and the person who you’re supposed to kill someday.

“Are you ready, Snow?” He holds the ball up, and I try to focus on it. Intention counts when casting spells, so I think about how I just want everything to slow down, how I just need a moment where everything stops moving-

And then he throws the tennis ball.

“ ** _Slow up!_** ”

I’m so focused on the tennis ball that for a moment I’m ecstatic. It stops in mid-air, and I can’t believe that I got the spell right on my first try! Then, I look around the classroom, and I realize that I _really_ didn’t.

“What did you _do_ , Snow?” Baz is the only other person in the room who doesn’t seem to be frozen. He’s looking around at all of our classmates, frozen in time, and all of the tennis balls hanging in mid-air.

“I didn’t mean to…” I trail off, not knowing what else to say. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know why Baz seems to be the only one immune to however I mangled the spell. He’s now firing off spells of his own, clearly trying to undo whatever I just did.

“What were you thinking of, when you cast the spell?” He sounds way less angry than I would have expected. “Intention matters, after all.”

“I _know_ , I’m not a first year!” He’s being nice, but I still feel jittery, even more on-edge than I was before mucking up. “I was thinking about how I wanted it to slow down.”

One of his eyebrows is arched again. “How you wanted _what_ to slow down? Just the tennis ball?”

He’s been in classes and shared a room with me for long enough to know how these screwups usually go. He’s also alarmingly perceptive sometimes, and it’s annoying.

“No,” I finally mumble.

“Come on, Snow, use your words. Tell me what you were thinking about, and we’ll see if we can fix this.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

He looks almost shocked for a moment, before his face settles back into his usual bored look.

“We’re on a truce. And I don’t want to be stuck in time or whatever it is that you’ve done forever.”

I duck my head and then scuff my toe on the ground for a few seconds, before saying quietly, “I just wanted everything to stop for a second so that I could think.”

Baz huffs a little laugh. “I guess we should all be glad you don’t think more often then, if this is what happens.” When I don’t respond he drops his teasing tone and tips his head a bit, trying to get me to meet his eyes. “What do you need to think about so badly that time has to stop, Snow?”

He’s being far too nice, almost kind, or friendly, and that just makes everything worse somehow. He’s not supposed to be soft, we’re just supposed to tolerate each other and not actively make any attempts on the other’s life until we figure out who killed his mum. He’s not supposed to make me feel anything other than disgust, or hatred, or anger, or whatever.

I want to ignore him. I don’t want to answer his questions, or open up to him, or let him know anything about what’s happening in my mind. But I also feel like the walls of the room are closing in around me, and he’s the only person who can help, and even though I don’t want him here, I really want him to help me.

“Everything, I guess. It’s just, there’s a lot. And- I don’t know what to do with it? It’s just too much, and I want it to stop happening so fast, or not happening at all, I don’t know, I just- ugh.” I break off on a frustrated sigh, I don’t know to explain the tight feeling in my chest and all the conflicting thoughts in my head.

“Have you tried talking to Bunce about it?” He wrinkles his nose after asking, but when I shake my head no and rake my hands through my curls he still tries again.

“Would it help you to talk about it with me?”

I’ve never heard Baz sound so unsure in his entire life, and my shock at hearing him volunteer to _talk about my problems_ with me is what forces me finally make eye contact, my head whipping up so fast I’m surprised my neck doesn’t crack. My eyes must be as big as saucers.

For his part, Baz also looks sort of out of his element, but he really does seem to be earnest about helping (and maybe like he’d also like to disappear right about now). (I know that’s how I feel.)

“Alright, yeah, I guess we can try that.” I sit down on the ground, because for some reason that feels like the least awkward thing to do, and I rest my elbows on my bent knees. Baz follows suit, although he crosses his legs instead of pulling them into his chest, and then just sits there looking at me, his head slightly tilted to one side as he waits for me to speak.

Merlin, he’s actually giving me a chance to find the right words for once.

I play with the cuff of my jumper as I cast about for something to say, trying to figure out how to even begin explaining everything that feels wrong.

“I’ve been feeling really, I dunno, off? I guess? I feel like I can’t catch on to what’s happening, and when I do nothing feels the way it should.” It’s a rubbish explanation, but Baz still tries his best to understand.

“In classes? With your spell work? Doesn’t Bunce help you study?” I’m grateful that he doesn’t point out that I’ve been at least a little off academically since I arrived at Watford, and not just these past few months.

“No, I mean, not really. Classes still feel the same, and my magic hasn’t really changed I don’t think, it’s just everything else. Everything that’s happening. Or, not happening?” I don’t know why I feel like I’m asking him to clarify things for me, but he keeps trying.

“Do you mean outside of Watford? Are you talking about the war? Or the Humdrum? Or are you just worried about graduating and having to pick out your own clothes afterwards?”

I can tell that Baz is trying to interject a bit of levity by teasing me, but it falls flat. He’s trying to look like he doesn’t care, like he isn’t invested, but he’s holding himself just a little too still for that to be believable. I’ve shared a room with him for seven years, I know his tells.

I start to tug at my shoelace.

“It’s the war, I guess, and maybe the Humdrum too. I just feel like I should be doing something, or something should be happening, and it’s not. The Mage isn’t talking to me, and when he does he won’t give me a straight answer, and I know there’s supposed to be some big epic showdown where we have to fight, but no one’s really told me what to do about that yet, and I feel like we’re running out of time.”

By the time I’m done talking my shoelace is twisted around my index finger and I’m pulling it so hard that my fingernail is going purple. I can feel my magic pushing to the surface, and I take deep breaths, trying to calm down a bit. Baz is just sitting there, still unmoving, staring at me blankly, until he bursts out laughing.

“I’m sorry, are you complaining to me because no one has given you the orders to kill me yet?”

His laughter snaps me out of it. I’m not exactly calm, but I’m surprised enough that I answer honestly.

“I guess, yeah. But I don’t want to, and I know I haven’t really said that, but that’s part of the problem too.”

He raises one eyebrow. “You don’t want to kill me?”

I’ve already told him that I don’t, I can’t really say anything else. “No. I mean, you’re a git, but you don’t hurt people. Well, you hurt me, you attack me all the time, but you don’t hurt anyone else. Do you want to kill me?”

I don’t know why I’m asking, he taunts me weekly with reminders that he’ll be the one to finish me off. But instead of answering, Baz just deflates a little bit. For a moment he looks less like a villain and more like an uncertain boy.

Finally, he says quietly, “No. I don’t want to kill you either.” He seems almost ashamed to be admitting it, but I feel like we’re finally making progress.

“That’s great! Then we won’t! We can just sit out that battle, say ‘no thank you!’, and have one less thing to worry about. We can figure out what happened to your mum, deal with the Humdrum, and then just, retire or something I guess.”

The corner of Baz’s mouth is ticking up a bit, and I can tell that he’s indulging me. “Oh really, Snow? You’re thinking about retirement already? You’re not even in to your second decade on this planet and you’re all ready to become a pensioner; who would have guessed the Chosen One was so short-sighted?”

“We don’t have to properly _retire_ , Baz, but we could take a break from all of the life-or-death stuff. You know, house in the countryside, a garden, a pet, you could drain the blood from the rats that try to invade the henhouse, that sort of thing.”

I expect him to rise to the bait with my vampire comment, but instead it looks like his face is trying to flush.

“Are you suggesting that we retire _together_?”

Oh.

“Well, no, I just kind of meant we could each have a quiet life, but why not?” He’s getting flustered, and I want to see if it’s possible for his cheeks to actually turn red. “We’ve already agreed that we don’t want to kill each other, and you’re a decent enough roommate when you’re not being a prick. You’d keep the cottage tidy, and you could cook dinner for us.” It’s work not to laugh, but I want to push him just a bit further. “We could get a cat or something, and the two of you could fight over the rats!” I’m about to lose myself to laughter, and Baz is staring at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“You want me to retire to a cottage with you to be a vampiric 1950’s housewife? I think not, Snow. Besides, you’re a slob, I wouldn’t want to clean up after you all day.” He hesitates, then adds, “And I’m not a very good cook.”

I pretend to gasp in shock. “There _is_ something the perfect Basilton Grimm-Pitch doesn’t excel at!” I nudge his knee with my foot.

“Yes, but that’s the only thing, I can assure you,” he sneers, before softening his features again. “Was that it, Snow? You stopped time because you didn’t want to kill me?”

I pause for a moment and take stock. I definitely feel a bit better, but some of the jittery unease is still twisting in my chest. Baz can’t really help with the Mage or the Humdrum right now, but maybe we can sort out one other thing while the world waits for us.

“That’s definitely a big part of it. And it’s good to know that you don’t want to kill me either. But,” I take a breath and decide to just go for it, to blunder on ahead and fix anything I mess up later (it’s always worked for me before), “what are we?”

“Excuse me?” His eyebrow is arched again.

“Earlier you said we were acquaintances, but we’ve lived together for seven years, so shouldn’t we be something more than that?”

I don’t know why my brain is so stuck on that, but right now I feel like this is the only thing I have to sort out, everything else can wait until later.

“What do you want us to be? I don’t think that _mortal enemies_ or _nemeses_ is really appropriate now that we’ve agreed not to slaughter each other.”

He’s being stubborn on purpose now, I can tell. It’s like he’s run out of his daily dose of compassion, and so he’s going to hide the rest of it away under his snark. I push on anyway, trying to get him to be reasonable.

“I dunno, friends? What do most roommates call each other?”

He snorts. “I think it depends who you’re talking about. I highly doubt Bunce would call her pixie roommate a friend, although there are individuals like Dev and Niall who lie on the other end of that spectrum.”

“I’d rather be like Dev and Niall. It’s exhausting not to be friends with someone you see all the time.”

Baz looks again like he would be blushing if he had enough blood for it. “You… you want to be friends?”

“Yeah, why not? We’re already under a truce, how much harder could it be? I’ll try to be quieter in the mornings, you’ll stop insulting me, and it’ll be great.”

“If your friendship means that I’ll get to sleep a few minutes later in the morning, then _yes_ , by all means, let’s be friends, Simon.”

Baz looks a bit dejected, but I’m beaming. I feel like we might be on our way to solving something.

“You called me Simon.”

His eyes widen a bit, but he tries to play it off.

“I most assuredly did not.”

“You did! You called me Simon! You do like me!”

I know I sound like a child, and I’m practically bouncing up and down which doesn’t help either, but Baz has never called me Simon in the entire time we’ve known each other, and the fact that he finally has is making my heart beat faster with excitement because I feel like I’ve finally won, but in such a way that he didn’t have to lose, and even though he’s frozen up again, I finally know what to do to loosen the knot in my chest. I don’t let myself think about it, I just fall forward onto my knees, grab his face in my hands, and press my lips to his.

For a moment, nothing happens. Baz is still frozen, and I start to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have done this after all. But then, he starts to move. He presses back into me, and it feels like time has stopped for us too.

I’m kissing a boy.

I’m kissing my roommate.

I’m kissing _Baz_.

After an unknown amount of time he pulls away, but I don’t let him go far. His hands have fallen to my waist, and his grip there is just as firm as my own.

“Simon, what…” His pupils are blown wide, and his eyes keep jumping between my eyes and my mouth.

“You called me Simon again,” I whisper, and pull him back in for another kiss. He goes willingly, but pulls back again far too soon.

“What’s wrong?”

“What are you doing?” I furrow my brows, I thought it was pretty obvious that we were snogging. “This isn’t what typical friends or roommates do, Snow.” His face looks pinched, like he’s trying to guard himself, and I want the wrinkle on his forehead to relax. So, I kiss him one more time, then pull back just enough to remind him that we’ve never been typical roommates, and I see no need to start that now if we can just do this instead. He laughs at that, just a quiet chuckle, and then _he_ finally kisses _me_.

Eventually, we break apart and just spend a few seconds looking at each other. I’m feeling almost shy, but Baz doesn’t let that last. He stands up, dusting off his trousers, and then offers me a hand. I pull myself up but don’t let go as he says, “Shall we try to fix the mess you’ve made now, Snow?” He squeezes my hand so I know that he doesn’t mean anything unkind by it, and I grab for my wand.

It turns out I’m pretty good at cleaning up messes, once I have a little time to think. The classroom comes back to life as soon as I try casting **_Hurry up!_** , and once class is over Baz and I spend the rest of the day cleaning up seven years of messes, hidden away from everyone else in our tower.


End file.
